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Lucius the Eternal
Note: This page is for the Chaos Lord; for the Forge World, see Lucius. of the Emperor's Children Traitor Legion, wielding the Lash of Torment and the Blade of the Laer]] Lucius the Eternal is the Champion of the Chaos God Slaanesh and a Lord Commander of the Emperor's Children Traitor Legion. Lucius is also known as the "Soulthief," "Fulgrim's Champion," "Blade of Aeons," and the "Scion of Chemos." Many millennia ago, Lucius was a proud Space Marine of the Emperor's Children Legion, following his Primarch, Fulgrim, across the galaxy in the name of the Emperor. Forsaking all experience other than the art of close combat with the sword, Lucius bore the scars of battle with pride and, over time, he began to equate pain with success. By the time the Emperor's Children had been seduced by Horus' rebellion, Lucius had cut deep lines across his face, head and chest, linking his scars in a maze of irregular patterns that distorted and deformed his features. Lucius slowly descended into madness. He was compelled by the whispers in his mind to commit ever more extreme acts, furthering an intense obsession with being the perfect swordsman. Lucius continued to distinguish himself in the service of his Primarch as the III Legion descended into Chaos worship. He fought with incredible speed and skill in the gladiatorial contests Fulgrim held when the Legion was travelling from world to world. Lucius was almost invincible, a force of nature that could not be bested. The champion remained undefeated until he was finally slain fighting the infamous Lord Commander Cyrius. Slaanesh was loath to let such a promising protégé slip into oblivion. Over the next few solar weeks, the Artificer Armour Commander Cyrius wore began to warp and change. Cyrius' hair fell out in clumps, and dark lines appeared under his flesh, slowly pushing through his skin as a maze of scar tissue. Soon, Lucius had emerged completely. All that remained of his executioner was a screaming, writhing face, subsumed for eternity into Lucius' armour. Now, Lucius stalks the galaxy as an arrogant slaughterer who can never truly be killed. Whoever slays him and takes even a moment of satisfaction or pride from the act will find themselves transforming, slowly and painfully, into Lucius. The tortured visages of those who once killed him writhe within his armour, affording the swordsman endless gratification. His ornate sabre and sentient whip have tasted the blood of champions and kings across the galaxy, and he leads his debauched warband of Emperor's Children with total confidence, welcoming death with as much passion as he inflicts it upon his foes. History A History of Violence During his youth on the dismal planet of Chemos, Lucius shone out as a jewel in the dirt. He had an immense reservoir of talent that he could pour into any pursuit that caught his fancy, and he was possessed of a boyish handsomeness that even the harsh air of his home planet could not mar. Lucius quickly attracted patrons from the upper echelons of power. His sponsored studies gravitated towards the arts of war, for the business of killing held a fascination for him. Yet it was not large-scale strategy or tactical analysis that made his eyes gleam. Instead, it was personal triumph that captivated the young Lucius –- the duel, the contest, the sword bout. Only there could a true warrior be feted for his skills; only there could the glory and approbation be his alone, and the fine wine of victory savoured beyond all doubt. Such was Lucius' hunger for personal glory that his entire life distorted around it, bending like hot metal around the pointed pursuit of excellence. By the time he came of age, the young swordsman had already surpassed the classical styles taught by the weapon masters of Chemos. During his studies, his rapier took the lives of dozens of beggars and brigands that Lucius later claimed had attacked him. He dispensed hundreds of scars to lesser pupils, even claiming an eye or a finger here and there in the occasional "accident." His character was called into doubt time and time again, but none could argue with the lustre of his skills. As he grew older, Lucius redefined the term prodigy. He fought with lackadaisical contempt against youths his own age, toying with them like a cat toying with a wounded bird before delivering the scar that signalled their defeat. Against his tutors, however, he fought like a man possessed, every iota of his being focused upon victory. While competing in the yearly contest held by the Elders of Chemos, Lucius' impeccable swordsmanship caught the eye of a hulking stranger who watched from the shadows. During the last round of the Golden Sword, there was a disruption in the tourney lists, and the young swordsman found himself fighting against a famed champion twice his age. Though Lucius had proven himself the better warrior within the first few minutes, when his opponent drove a knee into his stomach, the youth was knocked to the dirt. Winded, Lucius reeled and stumbled out of his foe's reach long enough to recover his breath. A frown of concentration on his boyish face, he then proceeded to take his opponent apart, limb by limb and vein by gushing vein. The champion’s supporters were outraged at the callous dispatching of their leader, and they stormed the arena en masse. It was then that the bloodletting began in earnest. Lucius would have met a gory end if it were not for the intervention of the shadowy stranger observing the contest. Both the youth and the stranger disappeared before the contest's conclusion. Lucius was never seen again amongst the people of Chemos. The stranger, a ranking Sergeant in the IIIrd Space Marine Legion, had been so impressed by Lucius's raw talent and determination that he offered the youth a single chance to join the Legiones Astartes. Lucius leapt at the opportunity. So began the military career of a young warrior who would eventually come to define everything that was evil and twisted in the Emperor's Children. A Crusade of One Enhanced beyond mortal bounds by the blessings of the Space Marine induction process, Lucius became ever more skilled in the arts of the blade. He never tired of outclassing his peers in the exercises that their sergeants put them through every day. The evening before the Feast of the Emperor's Blessing, Lucius wrested a full sequence of flawless victories from each of the blade-machines in the practice cages; a feat that had never been achieved before, nor replicated after. Though his confidence and supreme skill might have earned the enmity of mortal men, his brothers in the Emperor's Children sang his praises in all honesty. Their Legion admired perfection above all else. Before long, Lucius had come to the notice of Lord Commander Eidolon. As the Great Crusade unfolded, Lucius directed his puissant skill towards the goals of the Emperor's Children on a dozen worlds brought to Imperial Compliance. He was rewarded with command of the 13th Company. At first, Eidolon saw his faith in Lucius as well-placed. Though the young swordsman was self-serving and cocky, he was never found wanting in the arts of war. The state of his soul was another matter. The Great Crusade Legion, before the Horus Heresy]] After his elevation to the rank of Thirteenth Captain, Lucius had a reputation for preening arrogance. He would throw himself into any fight without hesitation and inevitably come out the victor. On Hallelujah Prime, Lucius shattered the heads of the six-armed sword gholems that protected the heretic Malachoir, using the hilt of his blade when he realised that its edge could not hurt them. During the pitch-dark battles under Olchite Mount, Lucius stormed out of an argument with the Lord Commanders and proceeded to hunt down and impale the thirsting xenos entities known as the Ragged Fiends one by one over the course of a single day. His blade was the fulcrum upon which the Fausch Revolution was overturned, and at Siegebreak, his was the sword that took the head of the False Dorn. Many months passed without Lucius taking a single backward step. These frequent displays of martial supremacy merely pushed Lucius’ towering ego to ever greater heights. Though he saved his brothers' lives on countless occasions, he never missed an opportunity to crow about his largesse. It became increasingly clear that he took to the battlefield not because he believed in the Great Crusade's intention to unite Humanity, but to prove his superiority over the rest of the galaxy. During this time, Lucius was gently mocked by his fellow warriors for being "too pretty." Though he had granted a thousand scars, he had yet to earn even a single sword-kiss in return. It was this fact, twinned with the breaking of his septum at the hands of his peer, Garviel Loken of the Sons of Horus Legion, that led to the ritual scarification of Lucius's face and chest. No warrior was skilled enough to gift him a proper scar, he reasoned, so he would just have to scar himself. Sometimes the tip of Lucius' blade sank as far as a finger’s width into his flesh, or carved a line into the skull beneath his close-shaven scalp. These self-administered wounds were seen by his Battle-Brothers as acts of strange but commendable piety. The truth was far darker. Over the course of the wars waged by his Legion, Lucius began to equate pain with success. The network of scars he had carved into his flesh became more and more pronounced, reflecting a dangerous masochism that had taken hold of his soul. Should Lucius be denied a chance to show off his perfect bladework, his petulance and spite would bubble violently to the surface. The counsel of his fellow Emperor's Children Captain and friend, the level-headed Saul Tarvitz of the IIIrd Legion's 10th Company, helped Lucius see his own flaws for what they were. To his credit, Lucius made a genuine effort to allay them over the course of their friendship, but it was not enough. The reasons recorded for this disfigurement have varied. Some claim they were an expression of Lucius's "devotion and piety" towards the Chaos Gods, others that they were intended to deflect comments that he looked more like a boy than a warrior. In reality, Lucius had met a Slaanesh-corrupted Remembrancer and painter who accompanied the 28th Expeditionary Fleet named Serena d'Angelus. After showing Lucius her hideously scarred forearms, she explained that each scar was a memorial to one of her victims. Lucius, whose face was no longer unblemished after facing Garviel Loken in the training cages, understood better than anyone that his appearance would never be flawless again, and so scarred his face without remorse. After this meeting he added a scar to his body every time he met a worthy opponent, such as before duelling with his former comrade and best friend, Saul Tarvitz, during the Istvaan III Atrocity. The Horus Heresy -corrupted swordsman, Lucius the Eternal, during the Horus Heresy]] As the machinations of Horus were revealed, the Emperor's Children began their fall from grace. First amongst them was the Primarch Fulgrim. The Phoenician sought to rescue Horus from himself, but he became hopelessly corrupted by the words and weapons of the Warmaster in the process. Next to succumb were the IIIrd Legion's spiritual and martial leaders, each lured by the promise of perfection and caught upon the hooks of excess that Horus cast in their path. Slowly at first, the corruption spread to the rank and file –- the Emperor's Children revered their Primarch and his Lord Commanders in all things, and they followed their masters' doctrine to the letter. Horus' insidious plan began to bear fruit as spiritual perversion spread throughout the IIIrd Legion at an unchecked pace. By the time the Warmaster ordered his Traitor Legions to turn upon their Loyalist brothers at Istvaan III, almost every one of the Emperor's Children had fallen under the sway of the Dark Prince. Istvaan III Atrocity Lucius' descent into the clutches of Chaos only deepened during the Istvaan III Atrocity after Horus betrayed the Loyalists within his own Traitor Legions to cleanse his troops of any who remained beholden to the will of the Emperor of Mankind. Originally forced to fight on the side of the Loyalist Astartes during the three-month-long battle on that devastated world because his friendship with Tarvitz had made the Legion's leaders believe he would not support their decision to betray the Emperor, Lucius' pride and jealousy eventually overwhelmed him. Lucius came to resent Tarvitz's role in their success against the enemy and the respect he commanded from the other Loyalist Astartes. Lucius contacted Lord Commander Eidolon and promised to deliver Tarvitz -- and break the Loyalists' defences -- for the Warmaster in return for being reaccepted into the Legion. Eidolon accepted the proposal. Lucius slaughtered a group of 30 Astartes who were defending the Loyalists' lines to open the way for the Traitors' final assault against their former brethren. Lucius succeeded in this assassination with the aid of Captain Solomon Demeter of the 2nd Company of the Emperor's Children, who had also remained a Loyalist and realised too late that Lucius had tricked him into attacking a group of Loyalist Astartes. Lucius slew the wounded Demeter just after he realised with horror the full extent of his mistake and Lucius' betrayal. With his place restored in the ranks of the Traitors, Lucius then challenged Saul Tarvitz to a one-on-one duel to finally determine who was the better warrior. Tarvitz emerged the victor, but Lucius fled the battle and returned to the arms of his Traitor Legion, having fulfilled his side of the bargain. Drop Site Massacre During the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V, the tragic campaign that saw the near destruction of three Loyalist Legions, including the Iron Hands, Raven Guard and Salamanders, Lucius willingly took part in the slaughter of his former Astartes cousins. At the forefront of the Emperor’s Children, Lord Commander Eidolon and the swordsman Lucius led a contingent of their warriors into the heart of the enemy, killing with wondrous displays of bladework and howling shrieks of raw sonic power. The swordsman danced through the battle, his Terran blade carving a screaming, bloody path as he laughed in time with music only he could hear. A Primarch Possessed After the events of Istvaan V played out to their bloody, inevitable conclusion, the Astartes of the IIIrd Legion had no idea that their beloved leader was clawing ineffectually at the bondage of his own mind in which he was held. Only Lucius had appeared to realise that something was amiss with Fulgrim, but even he had said nothing. The daemon-Fulgrim had sensed the burgeoning Warp touch upon the swordsman and had presented him with the silver daemonblade within which the Laer had originally bound a fragment of the daemon's essence, as he now wielded the far more potent Kinebrach Anathame, a gift from Horus. Though the Blade of the Laer was now bereft of its daemonic spirit, there was still power within the blade, power that would empower Lucius in the years of death to come. After the conclave aboard Horus' flagship, the daemon-Fulgrim and the Emperor's Children Legion were ordered to Mars to aid the coming civil war within the Mechanicum by the Warmaster. But instead of following his brother's orders, the increasingly mercurial Primarch decided to disobey, and instead ordered his Legion to assault an Adeptus Mechanicus crystal Mining World called Prismatica V. Unable to deal with his lord's mercurial temperament as well as his fellow senior members of the Legion, Lord Commander Eidolon questioned the Primarch's orders. This proved to be a tragic miscalculation on Eidolon's part. Unable to placate his angered lord, the few words he managed to speak on his own behalf inadvertently provoked the Primarch further. The paranoid Primarch believed that the Lord Commander was mocking him and planned to betray him. Quicker than the mind's eye could follow, the Primarch withdrew the Anathame from its scabbard and slew his once-favoured son. He then held the severed head of the slain Eidolon over the opened casks of victory wine, the viscous blood dripping from the grisly trophy and mixing with the potent drink which was then shared amongst the senior members of the IIIrd Legion's inner circle. Far from upset at the death of the much-despised Eidolon, the ascendant champion of the Emperor's Children, Lucius, took note of yet another example of Fulgrim's increasingly capricious behaviour. Contemplating upon the change in his lord, Lucius was inspired to investigate further after receiving a series of dark dreams concerning the painting of the Primarch that hang in La Fenice, which had been cordoned off and sealed by a detachment of the Phoenix Guard after the Maraviglia had worked its corrupting influence upon the Legion. Already concerned by his lord's erratic behaviour and strange moods, Lucius proceeded to scrutinise the Primarch's every move. His concerns grew even more when he noticed Fulgrim's lack of brotherly-camaraderie and observance of Legion rituals and tradition. But what truly aroused Lucius' suspicions was the realisation that Fulgrim's swordsmanship was suddenly inferior to his own superlative skills. His Primarch was not whom he appeared to be. His suspicions were further confirmed when he witnessed Fulgrim employing powerful psychic abilities in open combat against a ''Warhound''-class Titan of the Mechanicum during the IIIrd Legion's assault on Prismatica V. Lucius continued to receive the strange dreams in his sleep, and began to follow the threads implanted by these prescient visions. Breaking a standing order, Lucius defied the Primarch and went to investigate La Fenice, the theatre located aboard the Emperor's Childrens' flagship Pride of the Emperor. This is where the Emperor's Children had truly fallen to the corrupting influence of Slaanesh, awakened by the operatic symphony known as the Maraviglia. Investigating the ruined chamber thoroughly, Lucius discovered above the stage that a great portrait hung above the smashed wreckage of the proscenium. Even in the dying light, the portrait’s magnificence was palpable. A glorious golden frame held the canvas trapped within its embrace, and the wondrous perfection of the painting was truly breathtaking. Clad in his wondrous armour of purple and gold, Fulgrim was portrayed before the great gates of the Heliopolis, the heart of the flagship, the flaming wings of a great phoenix sweeping up behind him. The firelight of the legendary bird shone upon his armour, each polished plate seeming to shimmer with the heat of the fire, his hair a cascade of gold. The Primarch of the Emperor’s Children was lovingly portrayed in perfect detail, every nuance of his grandeur and the life that made Fulgrim such a vision of beauty captured in the exquisite brushwork. No finer figure of a warrior had ever existed or ever would again, and to even glimpse such a flawless example of the painter’s art was to know that wonder still existed in the galaxy. Gazing at the eyes of the painting, Lucius could see the horror within his Primarch's eyes, a horror that had not been rendered by the skill of a mortal painter. The perfect, exquisite agony burned in the portrait's gaze, the dark pools of the painted eyes seemed to follow his every movement. Lucius came to the conclusion that somehow, his Primarch was trapped within the painting, and that the entity that paraded around as their Legion's lord was an impostor. Determined to free his Primarch by any means at his disposal, Lucius secretly convened the Brotherhood of the Phoenix -- the exclusive warrior lodge of the IIIrd Legion that only allowed warriors of officer rank to join because of the Legion's love of hierarchy. This had to be done with the utmost secrecy, for by this time the corrupted senior officers had become powerful, volatile and self-obsessed with the pursuit of their individual pleasures. Also, many of these senior officers carried a loathing for Lucius, whom they viewed as a despised upstart. Through his skilled oratory, the swordsman was able to persuade his mercurial brothers that the Primarch was not himself. He further challenged their egos and stroked their vanity, tempting them into boldly capturing their Primarch. Shortly after, the Brotherhood of the Phoenix ambushed the Primarch, and despite taking several casualties, manage to subdue their lord by rendering him unconscious. The Primarch was then taken to the Apothecarion of the IIIrd Legion's Chief Apothecary Fabius Bile, where he was strapped down to one of the examination tables. Here, Fabius, Lucius, Julius Kaesoron and Marius Vairosean attempted to drive forth the daemonic entity from their lord's mortal shell through a protracted torture session known as excruciation. Fulgrim willingly submitted himself to his tormentors' ministrations, and continuously spoke of his perceptions of reality, events that were currently taking place in the galaxy as Chaos grew in power and the envisioned path for his Legion. During the torture session, Lucius suddenly realised that they had been misled. Misinterpreting the situation, they had been duped by their lord. Lucius immediately bended his knee and prostrated himself before his Primarch as Fulgrim easily tore himself free from his restraints. His fellow conspirators all bowed to their lord and master. Content that his favoured sons had learned from the experience, the Primarch did not punish them for their transgressions, for he was not the daemon-possessed shell of the Phoenix as he had allowed his Astartes to believe, but the man himself. Fulgrim decided to share with Lucius his motives for such an elaborate ruse. He revealed that he had indeed been possessed by a daemonic entity for quite some time, an entity that had trapped his disembodied spirit within the great portrait that had hung in La Fenice. Unwilling to accept his fate, the Primarch had bided his time and used the tormenting experience to learn of Warp-craft and the infallible ways of daemonkind. He eventually was able to use this newly acquired arcane knowledge to force the daemon out of his mortal body -- swapping places with the foul entity -- and trapping it within the portrait for all time. Presumably, it was the daemon that had been sending Lucius the dark dreams in order to attempt to free itself from its prison. In an attempt to further educate his favoured champion in the unfathomable ways of Chaos, the Primarch's apparent inferiority in his sword techniques was merely a ploy to manipulate Lucius into challenging him. The Primarch went on to explain that his mercurial moods and lack of interest in camaraderie and the IIIrd Legion's rituals were a natural evolution of his nature to achieve perfection along the path laid out by Slaanesh. Fulgrim announced that he intended to go further than anyone in the realms of sensual experience, intent on pushing the boundaries of reality to the extreme. Fulgrim didn't merely want to accomplish these things for the sole acquisition of power, but to experience the journey -- a journey he wanted his sons to undertake with him. He explained that he had ordered the assault on Prismatica V to claim the crystal the Mechanicus had been mining there so that it might be used to erect a wondrous new city of mirrors dedicated to the exploration of sensual pleasure and self-enlightenment through sensation. But the next step on the Emperor's Children's path towards enlightenment through Chaos, was to rendezvous with the Primarch Perturabo and his Iron Warriors Legion. Angel Exterminatus Lucius would later take part in the joint expedition comprised of both the Emperor's Children and the Iron Warriors Traitor Legions into the Eye of Terror to seek out the forbidden xenos weapon known as the Angel Exterminatus. It had been hidden in the grave of its doom, a weapon of such power that the stars themselves turned upon it rather than allow it to escape its prison. The destination of the joint fleet of Iron Warriors and Emperor's Children vessels was the lost Eldar world of Iydris, a world said to have been favoured by the goddess Lileath. Iydris was one of the legendary Crone Worlds, which once formed the heart of the lost Eldar empire before they were consumed by the creation of the vast Warp Rift that was the Eye of Terror following the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh in the early 30th Millennium. The lost world was located at the heart of the Eye of Terror, somehow remaining in a fixed position keeping it from destruction in the gravitational hellstorm of a supermassive black hole that lay at the centre of the eternal Warp Storm. Their ultimate goal was within the Primarchs' grasp; the Sepulchre of Isha's Doom, which sat at the centre of the citadel of Amon ny-shak Kaelis. But Fulgrim had lied to his brother Primarch Perturabo, for in reality the reason they had come to the Crone World was so that the Emperor's Children Primarch could achieve apotheosis and become a Daemon Prince. During an epic climactic battle within the Sepulchre of Isha's Doom, Lucius fought against a multitude of Eldar Wraith constructs as well as their former comrades from the Iron Warriors. During the climax of the battle, Lucius also faced a small Loyalist force from the Sisypheum, an Iron Hands vessel that had survived the destruction of the Drop Site Massacre and fled, waging a guerrilla war against the forces of the Warmaster Horus. They had tracked Fulgrim to this benighted place, intent on thwarting whatever foul plans he intended to carry out. Lucius was once again confronted by Nykona Sharrowkyn, a surviving battle-brother of the Raven Guard Legion. He had faced the Loyalist Astartes on the world of Hydra Cordatus, where the Raven Guard and a fellow Loyalist had attempted, and failed, to assassinate his Primarch Fulgrim. Fighting with twin black swords extended before him, the Raven Guard sprang to the attack. Arrogantly, the corrupted swordsman believed that no one could possibly best him. Sharrowkyn proved him wrong. A blade plunged into Lucius' side, and Lucius twisted away from the fiery, unexpected and exquisite pain. He shook his eyes clear of blood and felt the Raven Guard behind him – he spun and thrust low with his sword, but once again his blades cut air and not flesh. Another lancing blow plunged into his back, and this time the pain was an unwelcome sensation. Lucius could see the Raven Guard, but he moved like nothing he had ever seen before, faster than any mortal man could possibly move, like a wraith or a being out of step with time. A black blade licked out and laid his cheek bare to the bone, a matching wound to the one Sharrowkyn had given him the last time their blades had crossed. Lucius spun, feeling suddenly helpless as the Raven Guard slipped around him with dizzying speed, his blades stabbing again and again. Lucius felt his sword tumble from his hand. Then the Raven Guard was at Lucius's back, pushing him to his knees, blades pressed down through his gorget into the hollows either side of his neck. He informed the doomed Emperor's Children swordsman that it gave him no pleasure to kill him. Lucius attempted to speak, to say something to mark his death. But Sharrowkyn's blades stabbed down behind Lucius's collarbone, tearing through both his hearts and lungs, severing arteries and wreaking catastrophic damage that not even a Space Marine's post-human physiology could undo. And all thoughts of a worthy valediction died with him. Somehow the Apothecary Fabius managed to somehow recover Lucius's battered body and revived him through some unknown process, returning the arrogant swordsman to life. A Bloody Metamorphosis of Slaanesh]] Following the events that occurred in the Eye of Terror, Lucius continued to distinguish himself in the arts of war as his Legion traced the downward spiral of Chaos worship. The gaudily-painted fleets of Fulgrim's traitor Legion moved from world to world, bringing ever more vile and extreme deaths to the populations that became their prey. In the transitory times between each invasion, the Emperor's Children would indulge in pageants of violence and gladiatorial contests amongst themselves. Only the most inventive displays of bloodletting could stay their boredom for long. Whenever he fought in these contests, Lucius truly excelled. His obsession with becoming the perfect swordsman lent him speed and skill that even other Space Marines could not match. The joy he took in both giving and receiving the hot kiss of agony was so intense that it echoed in both in the material dimension and the Warp. Some even whispered that Lucius had been brought back from the brink of oblivion more than once, and that his obsession was stronger than death. Lucius' infamy grew in this realm and the next. Before long, it was not only the Emperor's Children that drank in each of Lucius’ orgies of bloodletting, but the handmaidens of Slaanesh that clustered around his reflection in the Empyrean. After each contest, he basked in the adulation of his fellow Traitor Legionnaires, bowing elaborately and fanning the applause with his blade. His grandstanding was such that it eventually drove the silver-maned Lord Commander Cyrius to action. As the contest known as the Scarlet Blade reached its final round, Cyrius himself stepped into the arena against Lucius. The Lord Commander intended to teach the preening champion his place and cement his own position as Fulgrim's favoured son in the process. Clad in baroque artificer armour painted with obscene dreamscapes and wielding a twelve-foot power spear, Cyrius made for an impressive opponent indeed. The Lord Commander was every bit as fast as his chosen foe. Lucius fought hard to get within the reach of the power spear, ducking and rolling with fluid grace. Weapons clashed and clanged in a staccato blur. Though Lucius' blade was sharp as a razor, it could not penetrate Cyrius's ornate battle plate, and for his part the swordsman was wearing little more than a sleeved tunic. A well-placed kick from Cyrius sent Lucius sprawling backwards, coughing blood. A stab of the power spear took a finger from Lucius' sword hand. Less than a second later, a sidelong blow from the power spear’s haft sent starbursts across the swordsman's vision. Each fresh wound had sent Lucius giggling with glee. Cyrius bared his teeth, slashing and jabbing as his opponent laughed, staggered and whirled across the scarlet sands like a demented marionette. At the last, Lucius corkscrewed through the air and levelled a decapitating blow right at Cyrius' throat. There was a sudden crack of electrical discharge from the impact, and Lucius' blade snapped in two. As the crowd howled and hollered around him, Lord Commander Cyrius caught his laughing opponent by the throat. Grinning a mirthless smile, he pounded Lucius into the scarlet sands of the arena until there was nothing left but a red ruin of broken bone. The Emperor’s Children had lost their favoured duellist, but gained a memory to be savoured for years to come. Over the next few weeks, Lord Commander Cyrius underwent a hideous transformation. His mane of hair fell out in clumps, his eyes changed colour, and the copulating figures that decorated his armour writhed and flowed to depict a host of laughing daemons. To the commander's mounting horror, dark lines appeared under his flesh, pushing outward with each passing night until they formed a maze of scar tissue. His screams were a source of great interest to his fellow Emperor's Children, but none came to his aid. In the Lord Commander's fate they saw the hand of Slaanesh at work. Some swore that Cyrius' shrieks changed in tone, becoming ever more like maniacal laughter. The next gladiatorial event saw Lucius stride the sands once more, his power armour adorned with the tortured, moaning face of Cyrius. The heavily scarred swordsman had been reborn, and the Lord Commander had been taken in his place. In the throne at the arena’s edge, Fulgrim smiled knowingly. His master Slaanesh was evidently loath to let such an entertaining protege fall from the mortal coil for long. Since that day, Lucius has borne a peculiar blessing from his patron, Slaanesh. Whoever takes his chosen champion's life, and finds even a moment of satisfaction from the act, will find themselves undergoing a painful and gradual metamorphosis. When the transformation is almost complete, Lucius emerges from their discarded shell like a butterfly from a chrysalis. All that remains of his killer will be a screaming face trapped forever in the fleshy panels of his twisted battle plate. Thanks to his peculiar blessing, Lucius the Eternal has stalked the galaxy for almost ten thousand years. He is a pitiless and sadistic killer who welcomes death with as much passion as he inflicts it upon his foes, and he can only truly be slain by one who has nothing but mercy in his -- or her -- soul. Whether such a being exists in an uncaring universe, only Slaanesh knows, and the secrets of the gods are not meant to be shared. The Blessing of the Dark Prince Wychs]] After these events, Lucius eventually rose to become one of the two Lord Commanders of the Emperor's Children, after that Traitor Legion had been cemented in thrall to Slaanesh. Lucius did not obtain that position easily, however, for he was actually slain during an Emperor's Children gladiatorial game by the Chaos Space Marine he had challenged for the rank, Lord Commander Cyrius. Lucius' death was described as an experience of such "transcendent pleasure" that it caused Slaanesh himself to intervene and to reincarnate Lucius within the body of the previously victorious Cyrius; the latter's soul became a trapped, screaming face within Lucius' Artificer Armour by the will of the Prince of Pleasure. Lucius now stalks the galaxy as an arrogant slaughterer who can never truly be killed. Whoever slays him and takes even a moment of satisfaction from the act will find themselves transforming, slowly and painfully, into Lucius. The twisted, howling visages of those who once killed him writhe within his armour, affording Lucius endless gratification. He leads his warband of Emperor's Children Heretic Astartes with total confidence, welcoming death with the same passion he unleashes upon his foes. The Eternal Duellist Over the course of many Terran millennia, Lucius the Eternal led his motley warband across the galaxy on the trail of the deadliest opponents his network of admiring torture-cultists can locate for him. He intends to hunt down the best melee fighters in the galaxy and beat them in one-on-one combat or die in the attempt. Over the course of several Terran centuries he defeats the Dark Eldar Archon Vraesque in cursed Shaa-dom, the Emperor's Champion of the Black Templars at Veilfate, and the Ork Warboss Two-klaws at Octarius Sigma. Eventually, on a nameless moon near Damnos, Lucius is cut down by the shape-shifting Necron duellist known only as the Phasing Sword. Not even the Necron's body of living metal can prevent the Slaaneshi Champion's strange possession-curse from taking hold, however, for the undying Necron takes a cold pride in its victory, and that is the seed of its undoing. Lucius is reborn inside his killer within solar days, the xenos warrior's necrodermis body drizzling away like molten metal to reveal the twisted swordsman, as arrogant and maniacal as ever. Fall of Medusa V During the Fall of Medusa V campaign in 999.M41 Lucius fought in several different locations, including Hive Edethor and Hive Hydra. Personality Lucius was always defined even before his corruption by Chaos as a superlative swordsman, more skilled than any other Astartes of the Emperor's Children Legion. This skill was Lucius' pride and joy and the source of his extreme egotism. Unfortunately, Lucius was immature, selfish, egotistical and impulsive. These were initially qualities that he recognised as flaws and hoped to overcome with the aid of his friend Saul Tarvitz. Lucius often displayed a blind devotion to his Primarch Fulgrim, and he exemplified one of the primary aspects of his Legion's pursuit of martial perfection: ambition. After the Heresy, Lucius was primarily motivated by the pursuit of true challenges in combat and came to equate pain with success, delighting in the thrill of battle. Due to his egotistical pride, Lucius was said to only fight at his best when a "worthy" opponent was present to test his skills. Wargear -altered panoply of war]] *''Armour of Shrieking Souls'' - Lucius is able to constantly reincarnate within the body of any being that manages to kill him, effectively making him immortal. So long as the killer takes some measure of satisfaction from the victory over Lucius, this will result in the victor's body transforming and their soul becoming trapped in Lucius' suit of Power Armour, a daemonic artefact known as the Armour of Shrieking Souls. This armour draws its hellish strength from the thousands of souls trapped within it, providing Lucius with enhanced protection from any onslaught he encounters. Lucius is also able to focus the residual energies of the imprisoned souls' torment into a lethal sonic crescendo on an opponent's mind at will, causing the foe immense pain. Lucius' ancient Mk 4 Power Armour is all but hidden under a writhing skin of tortured flesh. *'Commorite Stimm-Rack' - Lucius further bolsters his already superhuman speed and strength with exotic combat stimulants, a prize wrested from the gladiatorial arenas of the Dark Eldar. The stimm-rack that dumps these combat drugs into his system before each duel was implanted within his flesh by the renegade Chirurgeon Fabius Bile, a fellow student of the black arts and pilgrim to hidden Commorragh. *''Lash of Torment'' - In his right hand, Lucius is armed with his personal Daemon Weapon, a gift from Slaanesh known as a Lash of Torment. This weapon takes the form of either a whip, or multiple lengthy tendrils, that twists and coils with a mind of its own. Cruelly barbed hooks run along its length and its sinuous coils are warm yet unsettling to the touch. Within this physical vessel is bound the essence of a Daemonette, and the whip is in turn bound to its bearer, either fusing to and ultimately absorbing his or her hand, or by fusing directly to his or her spine like a Mechadendrite. The Lash of Torment is, like all Daemon Weapons, sentient and has a will of its own. In battle it will move independently from its bearer, attempting to coil around any living being foolish enough to get close. Once it has trapped a victim, the Lash will writhe and constrict around the hapless being, slowly suffocating it and cutting it to pieces with its multiple barbs. The most disturbing power of the Lash is that it does not only thrive on the pain and fear of its victims, it also psychically projects these feelings to all those in the vicinity of its actions. Servants of Slaanesh find this highly entertaining and wonderfully pleasurable, but other beings have been seen running away in terror when forced to experience the terrible agony of one of their fellows caught in the Lash of Torment. Even outside of combat, the Lash 's ability to project emotions is a valued tool during the debased and perverse rituals of praise that the servants of Slaanesh engage in. *''Blade of the Laer'' - In Lucius' left hand, he wields a relic Power Sword from the Great Crusade. Millennia ago, following the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V, the Greater Daemon of Slaanesh who possessed the body of the Primarch Fulgrim presented the Daemonsword Fulgrim had recovered from the homeworld of the xenos known as the Laer to Lucius as a sign of Slaanesh's favour. This alien, single-edged blade once contained the captured essence of the daemon that possessed Fulgrim, but lost much of its power once the daemon was freed from imprisonment within the sword to inhabit the unfortunate Primarch's body for a time. Now the blade is an ordinary Power Sword of an exquisitely curved, single-edged design, but in Lucius' hands it remains as lethal as any blade that has ever been forged. *'Mark of Slaanesh' - Lucius also bears the Mark of Slaanesh upon the Armour of Shrieking Souls and is equipped with Slaaneshi combat drugs intended to heighten the sensations of battle. He is empowered with the powers wrought by Slaanesh's favour and daemonic physical strength and durability. Lucius has mutated considerably in the Terran millennia since his fall to Chaos and among the physical "gifts" he has received from the Prince of Pleasure are a pair of goat-like cloven hooves. *'Doom Siren' *'Frag Grenades' *'Krak Grenades' Sources *''Codex Heretic Astartes - Chaos Space Marines'' (8th Edition), pp. 48, 85, 120 *''Codex: Chaos Space Marines'' (6th Edition), pg. 62 *''Codex: Chaos Space Marines'' (4th Edition), pg. 54 *''Codex: Chaos Space Marines'' (3rd Edition, 2nd Codex), pg. 57 *''Horus Heresy: Collected Visions'', pg. 183 *''Warlords of the Dark Millennium: Lucius the Eternal'' (Digital Edition), pp. 3, 5-8, 9-12, 14-15, 17-20, 22-29 *''White Dwarf'' 255 (US), "Index Astartes First Founding: Children of the Emperor" *''Horus Rising'' (Novel) by Dan Abnett, pp. 178-181, 191, 194-201, 216-217, 219-227, 249, 252, 255-256, 283, 316-319, 336 *''Galaxy in Flames'' (Novel) by Ben Counter, pp. 21-22, 25, 27-28, 79-80, 82, 108-110, 120-123, 128-130, 152-156, 159-161, 163, 166-168, 176, 207, 211-212, 219-230, 233, 235-238, 247-248, 252-254, 256-260, 266 *''The Flight of the Eisenstein'' (Novel) by James Swallow, pg. 168 *''Fulgrim'' (Novel) by Graham McNeill, pp. 65-66, 187-188, 190, 192-194, 198, 204, 213, 221, 240-243, 245, 262-265, 271-273, 291-293, 323, 325, 329-331, 344-348, 399, 401-404, 412 *''The Primarchs'' (Anthology) edited by Christian Dunn, "The Reflection Crack'd" by Graham McNeill, pp. 6-22, 25-34, 36-55 *''Angel Exterminatus'' (Novel) by Graham McNeill, pp. 52, 89-91, 122-124, 134, 145-146, 152-157, 182, 208-211, 220, 239, 260-262, 268, 271-273, 286-288 Gallery File:Armour_of_Shrieking_Souls.jpg|The Armour of Shrieking Souls File:Commorite_Stimm-Rack.png|Commorite Stimm-Rack File:Lash_of_Torment2.png|The Lash of Torment File:Blade_of_the_Laer.png|The Blade of the Laer Lucius' Bodyguard.jpg|Lucius' Terminator Armoured elite bodyguard File:Lucius_Eternal2.jpg|Lucius the Eternal arrayed in the daemonic Armour of Shrieking Souls, and wielding the infamous Blade of the Laer and his daemonic whip, the Lash of Torment es:Lucius Category:L Category:Chaos Category:Chaos Characters Category:Chaos Space Marines Category:Characters Category:Emperor's Children